Dress Rehearsal 1

This will be my affirmation of the day: (borrowed from the Hay House Calender)
I am the perfect age right now. I have been younger and I will be older. I will never be this age again, so I make the most of this time and enjoy myself to the fullest.

This may sound cheesy to some, but somehow I find this line a source of great inspiration.
We need to live in the present.

Last night I was out at a singles event with Emily. This event was organized by dating website rsvp.

We had heaps of fun talking to random strangers, making some new friends and getting the odd number here and there.
There's a strange phenomenon I noticed that I like to call social proofing.
If a guy enters a singles bar by himself and stands in a corner nursing his drink in his hand while checking out the women in there, he does get noticed by the women. By the time he drinks enough dutch courage to approach a girl to say hello, they'll be less responsive as the women would have already noticed creepy fella standing by himself checking them out.

On the flip side. I walked into the venue, arm in arm with Emily in tow, we stood at the bar, got a drink and then proceeded to dance a few moves on the empty dancefloor while everyone else in the room looked on. After leaving the floor, I walked up to a bunch of girls and opened the set; launching into a conversation effortlessly because we've already established a few facts:

1) We were the most fun people in the room having a good time
2) Social dynamics will draw others to hang around fun people because they want to have a good time too
3) I wasn't behaving in a predatory fashion checking out targets from a corner before making my move, I was just there to have fun irregardless.

So there you go, social dynamics!

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In case you're thinking what is a "dress rehearsal" (the title of this post).

Well, sadly I'm at work this fine rainy saturday evening and am typing out this post while nobody's looking over my shoulder.

9 weeks to go on the project and we're having a trial run over the weekend working 24/7 in shifts as we run all our programs to migrate the 800,000 electricity customer and billing details over from Queensland.

Exciting times indeed.... although I'd rather watch paint dry if given a choice

So I'm was on call today and had to go into the office from 3pm till 6pm.
I finished up and just only got home when I got called back again at 8pm because something didn't load properly and had to be fixed.
Lets hope it doesn't pan out into a long night.

Good news is, one of our managers; Sarah is in charge of ordering dinner tonight.
We're having Thai... Yum !

Harder Better Faster Stronger

This is absolutely brilliant stuff !

Just wait till the lyrics start speeding up and realize how ingenious these girls are.

The end of a great holiday

1.30am on a Monday morning / Sunday night (depending on how you're looking at it)

I am dreading having to face waking up for work in a few hours.
I had a fun Wednesday night at this club/bar - Thumper @ the Goodwood Park Hotel.
Kyo was teaching an hour of basic beginner's salsa and there was such a big turnout that I took the lead and led the men's side of the class in the basic moves while he led the ladies.

It was good fun and when the class ended, the social Latin night started with a live Latin band playing some seriously sexy music for everyone to dance to. These people on the floor were amazing! Doing some beautifully executed salsa moves left, right and all over the place. I took a chance with this cute girl, Eugenie but warned her that since I was a beginner, any mistakes made would only be her fault

Lina the air hostess from last week came by as well for a dance and we had an instant group of new friends made there. After the gig, the lot of us went down the road to Emerald Hill for some drinks at an outdoor wine/bar.

Following that we adjourned to Pure, the white side room of Ministry, Singapore. It was a one off party in the middle of the week with local DJs Has and Angela Flame. I've known Angela for a while now since she visited Melbourne in 2006 and it was the first time I've actually heard her play a gig. Damm, not only is she hot looking, she's an awesome techno DJ!

Had an overnight flight on Thursday and arrived in Melbourne bleary eyed and exhausted on Friday morning. Pat & Emily were my official welcoming home committee at the airport. I love my housemates! =)

The Cure and the Cause

I spent Saturday night dancing away at Velvet Underground, the classy house sideroom of Zouk club. Miguel Migs and Julius Papp were at the helm of things, playing a delicious selection of deep house tunes. Happy times indeed, as I caught up with various groups of friends scattered all over the club.
I totally lost the plot when Julius Papp dropped the track "The Cure and the Cause" by Fish Go Deep.
My god!!! I really LOVE this track and it was the first time I heard it out in a club, and no better club than Velvet with its new sound system designed by Gary Stewart himself.

So, I cannot resist but to post up the video of this track to share with you all below....



Kyo was teaching Salsa at the Xenbar on Monday nights. I came along with the intention of getting some lessons and met the lovely bar owner, Emma who let me in for free!
It was a pretty slow night, so I had 2 hours of practice with another girl, followed by an additional hour of private lessons from Kyo to correct the minor flaws that I'll never be able to detect while taking group lessons.

I have much to learn about this dance, the weekly lessons I have been taking with Nic, Lisa and Kylie will never be enough to learn this dance effectively. I'm considering increasing that to twice weekly lessons now if time permits back in Melbourne. =)

2 more days to go in Singapore, I feel like there isn't enough time to do everything I'd like to accomplish here!

5am on the island that never sleeps

I'm back home in Singapore!

Christmas 2007 was brilliant, with me spending the eve with my lovely housemates (a separate post coming up on that with photos)

Much has happened since then, I was trying hard to get home to Singapore for New Years on the 30th December and it was a last minute stroke of luck that I managed to get a seat on Singapore Airlines.

Prog girl came by early on Sunday morning to help me pack (it was more like supervising and then falling asleep on the bed than helping really....) and drove me to the airport.

8hours and many thousand miles later, I'm back in the tropical jungle heat of Singapore and going straight into the crowds and traffic to dinner with the family. It was mum's 60th birthday dinner which officially makes her a senior citizen complete with benefits like cheaper public transport and discount movies during the afternoon.

So far, I've been living the good life. Visiting the gym in the afternoons, eating the cheap and plentiful local food, and catching up with friends in the night.

New Year's eve was spent at Zouk with no other than French marathon DJ extraodinairre Laurent Garnier at the helm of things, bringing us on a 10hour journey of house, techno and everything in between.

Last night, I went to meet up with my buddy Kyo, who was teaching Salsa at the O-Bar. We ended up dancing a few rounds with 2 cute girls there and turned it into an instant mini double-date when we went out for a late dinner at 2am (Nobody seems to sleep in Singapore!). Turns out they were stewardesses with Singapore airlines who were in town for a few days.

So here I am, 5am on a Saturday morning and I just got back from another night out of hanging out with friends at Zouk and its time to get some shut eye to recharge for another big weekend in the Lion City that never sleeps!

800 miles from home

I’m 800 miles away from home and sitting in a café at Brisbane airport’s domestic terminal.

View from my seat at the Virgin Blue terminal.

An interesting shot within a shot, I took these photos on my mobile and sent the pictures via Bluetooth to my laptop. Red Rooster chicken salad and a cup of tea for my afternoon snack.

Actually I’m starving as lunch was hours ago and I’m still feeling sore from a hard gym workout last night at what I fondly nickname “The Dungeon”. The Fitness First branch at 320 Adelaide St in the city has a great windowless weights room in its subterranean basement, filled with big heavy dumbbells and barbells. Blood and guts is the order of the day, and I love working out there whenever I get time away from the office.

The past week has been a daze as I was up at 4.30am on Monday morning to catch a 7am flight. I’m up here again to work with the development team as they fix the defects from the last trial conversion. I’m also the only person currently tasked to work on the reconciliation aspect of the project, which accounts for every single record that we process and tracks that record from start to wherever it ends up. In essence, this is like auditing, except with data instead of cash flows. The business and external auditors will want proof that nothing falls through the cracks when we crunch, transform and spit out this tremendous amount of data.

I think I’m finally used to working as a consultant now. The short notice to fly interstate doesn’t even faze me this time around and I’ve rehearsed the packing of my luggage and toiletries like a marksman disassembles and reassembles his rifle with a map burned into his memory. I can be ready to leave for a week’s trip in under half an hour.

My toiletries bag is always filled with miniature versions of what I’d normally use, packed neatly and stored away in the little compartments. My electric toothbrush is charged and ready to be transferred to its clear blue plastic travel case, the battery good to last for a week.

My mobile has got the numbers of airport pick-up and transfer services in 2 different states which I use to avoid the nightmare that is queuing for a cab and dealing with smelly foreign drivers. Its always nice to have a guy in a suit holding your name on a piece of paper and offering a clean and comfy ride to your destination when you trudge off the plane.

I’ve also learnt the fine art of catching up on sleep during the interstate flights. I always bring a book to read while waiting to board the plane and when in the air, as it serves a dual purpose of feeding the brain and inducing sleep. There’s nothing better than falling asleep shortly after take off and waking up just when the plane touches the ground.

So here I am, the week before Christmas and I have never worked harder in my life before with all the overtime hours I’ve been putting in to make this project run. I’m hoping to go home to Singapore in time for New Years Eve, but all the flights are full at the moment and I’m stuck in limbo on a wait list.

Here’s hoping for the best anyway….

Stereosonic

2 weeks ago I made a last minute decision (while still up working in Brisbane) to go for the Stereosonic festival at the melbourne showgrounds.




My friend had a spare industry ticket so I asked my trusty sidekick - prog girl to drive down during the week to Dan's workplace and front the money to help me buy a spare ticket as she and her friends were going too.


Prog-girl with her friends Kerry and Rita


It was a brilliant day spent in the sun with a venue that was big enough to accommodate the 15,000 strong crowd.


I'd say as with most outdoor raves and parties nowadays, there were still a large percentage of wankers, idiot kids and power muzzas; but not as much as what I experienced earlier this year at a string of events run by Future Entertainment.


The view from the grandstand overlooking the massive main outdoor arena. Notice the panels of 2 storey tall video columns showing trippy visuals.


Bumped into Liz, a party acquaintance I knew from some mutual friends


Big blow up gorilla casting its shadow over the crowd.


Some pretty cool 20yr old kids, Cameron and Spanky whom I struck up a random conversation with. They exclaimed that it was 'way cool' that even at my age I was rocking it hard at these events. Seeing that I'm only 27 and definitely have heaps more partying to do in my lifetime, I cracked up laughing so hard that my sides hurt.....


Mr Stacey Pullen from Detroit city, Michigan. One of the pioneer's of Techno in the early days!


A view of the sun slowy setting in the horizon and a cool breeze wafting into the grounds to replace the heat from the afternoon as people are still dancing


Stacey Pullen performed one of the best sets I've heard in recent times, considering the fact that he was playing outdoors in a pretty small stage in the corner.


Giant pie in the sky towering above the Hardware arena. I don't know why I took this shot but I felt compelled to because it was the best landmark there telling people to "meet me below the giant pie!"